A dynamic start from their ace. Two stars clubbing huge home runs. A rookie making a splashy debut. Some drama late, exterminated by their closer.
Yep, 2026 Opening Day had pretty much everything you wanted to see from the Philadelphia Phillies.
On a gorgeous spring day at Citizens Bank Park, a lot of things went right and, for just a little while, the memories of last October’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Dodgers in the NLDS faded.
This baseball team is going to play another 161 of these things,
all for a chance to try once again to push their Sisyphusian rock up the hill. But we’ll get to all that. On Thursday, the blueprint for regular season success was clear for all to see. Their 5-3 win over the Texas Rangers had all the ingredients we’ve seen this team successfully cook with over the last four seasons.
Cristopher Sanchez’ incredible performance was a continuation of the blossoming we’ve seen from him over the last three years. Not since Curt Schilling in 1997 has a Phils starter piled up 10 or more strikeouts in an Opening Day start.
That’s right. Roy Halladay never did it. Neither did Cliff Lee. Or Zack Wheeler. Or Cole Hamels. Or Aaron Nola. And that ain’t all.
His changeup was once again unhittable, generating a 54% whiff rate against the Rangers, who had absolutely no answers for him. His Game Score of 76 ranks tied for the 16th-best Opening Day performance by a starting pitcher in Phillies history (out of 129 starts). After Pittsburgh starter Paul Skenes was absolutely raked by the Mets for five runs in two-thirds of an inning on Thursday, the shortest outing of his career, Sanchez leapfrogged the reigning Cy Young Award winner in at least one odds-makers listing of ‘26 Cy Young contenders.
That didn’t take long!
While Sanchez was busy doing the “ace” thing, Kyle Schwarber once again gave fans an early Schwarbomb, a Ryan Howard Special to the opposite field in left-center. Two batters into the 2026 season, the Phils had a 2-0 lead, and Schwarber was 1/50th of the way to a second-straight 50-homer season.
Schwarber has a knack for these Opening Day dingers, especially after signing big free agent deals. He did the same thing in his very first at-bat as a Phillie on Opening Day in 2022, too.
Straight from the Irony Department, after an off-season in which everyone (including me) was bemoaning the idea of Alec Bohm hitting cleanup once again this year, it was Bohm who ended up smashing the biggest blast of the game, another oppo-shot, this to right field, to put the Phillies up 5-0.
You typically don’t want to have a player like Bohm in that spot in the lineup. We all know that. His career high in home runs is 20 (2023), and last year he hit just 11 in 120 games. He’s never had a slugging percentage above .448 in any of his first five MLB seasons. He’s simply miscast there.
But after all the talk of Bohm not providing enough “protection” for Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, it’s ironic that he was the one to pick up the slack for his teammates, both of whom struck out ahead of him with two runners on base. Had the Phils signed Bo Bichette this winter, Bohm wouldn’t even be here.
And then there’s rookie center fielder Justin Crawford, making his long-awaited MLB debut, hitting in the No. 9 hole. He was active early on, lacing line drive singles to center in his first two at-bats. It would have been icing on the cake if he could have delivered with the bases loaded and two outs in the 8th, but we’ll have to save that moment for some other day.
The Phils have had their share of dramatic Opening Day moments over the last 20 years. With a 5-0 lead entering the 9th, this wasn’t looking like one of them, but spring superstar reliever Kyle Backhus left his good stuff down in Florida. After a two-run blast, a couple more baserunners and some poor defense by Bryson Stott and Harper, Jhoan Duran entered the fray to secure the final two outs of the ballgame.
Manager Rob Thomson could have brought Duran in to start the 9th, even though it wasn’t a save situation, given the team is off on Friday. In the end, he had to use him anyway. Perhaps it’s just that Thomson forgot that, for the first time in his managerial career, he actually has a lock-down 9th inning pitcher at the start of the season. After Duran shut the door, it was revealed he became the first reliever in franchise history to record a save, at home, on Opening Day.
As Jayson Stark noted, eight Phils closers had earned saves on the road on Opening Day, but never at home.
It’s always fun to mix in a little “weird” on Opening Day.
For one day, everyone forgot about the World Series drought. Baseball was back, and the Phillies were doing what they’ve done every season since Thomson took over the reigns as manager.
They won a baseball game.
They’re going to win many more of them before the season is out.
They’re probably going to look a lot like this one did, too.
